Throughout history, civilisations have fallen and sometimes almost disappeared altogether. Paul Cooper tells their stories, but always in relation to our own time: how similar was the Bronze Age’s dependence on the eponymous metal to today’s dependence on oil? Could the Vikings’ refusal to adapt in Greenland be similar to today's inactivity? And how could the Sumerian’s change in diet be a role model for us today?

The disappearance of the indigenous people of Easter Island is particularly instructive: in contrast to the commonly told fable of a society responsible for its own downfall, Paul Cooper tells of their fate as the result of Western imperialism.

As well as being interesting, the podcast is excellently produced – often with multiple narrators and music from the time of the story. In this interview, Cooper talks about his “catalogue of the worst leaders”, which is also available as a book.

Since 2004, Brooklyn-based artist Rachel Sussman has explored harsh climates from Antarctica to the Mojave Desert to photograph the world’s oldest living organisms. This includes Pando, an aspen colony in Utah with a root system around 80,000 years old, and the Llareta plants in South America, which grow 1.5 cm annually and live for over 3,000 years. Despite their longevity, such ecosystems face threats from climate change and human activity.

Her photographs are meditations on “deep time” – timescales that are outside of our human, physiological experience of time – and often show the most versatile adaptation to the harsh climate conditions these organism are living in.

Agnes Denes (*1931 in Budapest) is a pioneer in conceptual, environmental and ecological art. One of her most striking installations is “Wheatfield - A Confrontation: Battery Park Landfill, Downtown Manhattan” from 1982. During a three month period the artist and volunteers planted a wheat field in one of the last undeveloped sections of Manhattan. An area right next to the Twin Towers and Wall Street called Battery Park City. The artist gained more attention recently, but is still overlooked in her prophetic art.

Nick Newman captures a billboard advertising the release of the new Diablo IV computer game while New York is being hit by heavy smoke from wildfire smoke in Canada.

In this article Rebecca Solnit shifts the perspective on climate change: Instead of framing the shift towards a green future as abundance to austerity, we should look at it as freeing from a flagellating state. By getting rid of “deadly emissions[…], nagging feelings of doom and complicity in destruction.” We could shift to a “sense of security, social connectedness, mental and physical health, and other measures of well-being are often dismal.” She shows how this would be an opportunity for “a sense of meaning, of deep connection and generosity, of being truly alive in the face of uncertainty. Of joy.”

November 2022 hatten Aktivisti der Letzten Generation im Wiener Leopold Museum das Schutzglas eines Klimt-Bildes mit Öl beschüttet und sich daran festgeklebt. Der Museumsdirektor Hans-Peter Wipplinger hatte die Aktion damals als inhaltlich richtig aber formell kontraproduktiv kritisiert.

Nun hat das Museum eine eigene Form der Aufmerksamkeitsgenerierung gefunden und 15 Kunstwerke schief aufgehangen. Die Neigung der Bilder skaliert dabei mit dem Temperaturanstieg in den entsprechend gezeigten Orten.

Churchill is a town in northern Canada that is famous for migrating polar bears. The shortfilm (14’, 2022) documents clash between human infrastructure and animal, but also the tourism resulting from the spectacle. It leaves you with the question who the nuisance is.

The film is produced by The New Yorker and is available on Vimeo and YouTube.